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In summary, these five works stand as the unrivaled sources of the principles upon which, in the words of Jefferson, our Constitution was "genuinely based." Upon review, it is evident that the "roots" of Constitutional liberty are, as Adams stated, grounded in virtue or morality and religion. As we contemplate the principles of liberty as espoused by Sidney, Locke, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, Jay and others, may we realize this truth:With respect to our Founding Fathers, we stand on the shoulders of giants -- and to the degree that we diminish them, we only diminish ourselves and lose sight of the vision they provided to us.The true principles for which they fought, lived and died comprise the granite cornerstones of the Constitution and of American civilization. They spring from the very Fountain of life, and of justice and mercy.

The 21st century. The age of Smart phones and Stupid people.

It is said that branches draw their life from the vine. Each is separate yet all are one as they share one life giving stem . The Bible tells us we are called to a similar union in life, our lives with the life of God. We are incorporated into him; made sharers in his life. Apart from this union we can do nothing.

Sorry, I'm a bit slow today. We've got a thread that's discussing a film that mocks all religions. Of a sudden, we're quoting Washington, Adams, Jefferson and others. Can you tell me if anyone here is suggesting that, based on the principles put forth by these men, we should ban the mocking of religion? If so, why don't you just say so?

The founders weren't omniscient. And on this subject Washington is clearly wrong. Religion is not necessary for morality or democracy.

OPINIONS

Hmmmmmmmm??? George Washington or Wilber?

I'll take George.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.C. S. LewisDo not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. (Are you listening Barry)?:mad:Ayn Rand

Sorry, I'm a bit slow today. We've got a thread that's discussing a film that mocks all religions. Of a sudden, we're quoting Washington, Adams, Jefferson and others. Can you tell me if anyone here is suggesting that, based on the principles put forth by these men, we should ban the mocking of religion? If so, why don't you just say so?

My apologies if I'm misconstruing the discussion.

The question of morality and religion and the such was brought up in the discussion. Now granted some may think the opinions & words of our nations founders to be irrelevant . That would be the case if you ignore the history behind our nations founding.

Although I may find it disgusting I actual am more than willing to let folks like Maher showcase their ideals and what they are about.

Last edited by Zeus; 10-04-2008 at 10:29 PM.

The 21st century. The age of Smart phones and Stupid people.

It is said that branches draw their life from the vine. Each is separate yet all are one as they share one life giving stem . The Bible tells us we are called to a similar union in life, our lives with the life of God. We are incorporated into him; made sharers in his life. Apart from this union we can do nothing.

In the incessant conspiracy to expel the God of the Bible from public life and to dismantle America’s Christian heritage, a variety of ploys and myths frequently is floated by those who profess “political correctness.” One commonly heard quip is: “We can have morality without religion.” Those who advocate such thinking insist that Christianity must be removed from the public sector—whether in government or public schools. They declare that morality is distinct from religion, and that individuals will acknowledge and embrace morality in the absence of Christianity. It was Hitler who said, “The great masses of the people...more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one” (1933, 1:10).

The fact is that the Creator of the human race is the sole Author and Source of objective morality. Otherwise, moral distinctions would simply be the product of the subjective whims of humans. Morality would thus legitimately vary from person to person and country to country. One society might decide to legalize pedophilia while another might make it illegal—and both would be “right” in the sense that everyone would be free to formulate their own moral standards. The result would be complete and utter social anarchy in which every person would be equally free to believe and behave however he or she chooses.

Charles Carroll
In stark contrast, the Bible presents the only logical and sane assessment of reality—an objective standard, authored by the Creator, exists for the entire human race. That standard resides within the confines of the Christian religion as articulated in the New Testament. Unless human civilization gauges its moral behavior according to that objective, absolute framework, moral and spiritual chaos in society will be the end result. In the words of Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence: “Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they, therefore, who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure...are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments” (as quoted in Steiner, 1907, p. 475, emp. added).

Yet, for some fifty years now, Americans have been pummeled with the humanistic notion that morality can be maintained in society to the exclusion of Christianity. With almost prophetic anticipation, the very first president of the United States—the Father of our country—anticipated and addressed this sinister misnomer. After serving his country for two terms as president, George Washington delivered his farewell address to the nation, dispelling the “morality-without-religion” theory in sweeping tones:

One cannot criticize religious dogmatism for long without encountering the following claim, advanced as though it were a self-evident fact of nature: there is no secular basis for morality. Raping and killing children can only really be wrong, the thinking goes, if there is a God who says it is. Otherwise, right and wrong would be mere matters of social construction, and any society would be at liberty to decide that raping and killing children is actually a wholesome form of family fun. In the absence of God, John Wayne Gacy could be a better person than Albert Schweitzer, if only more people agreed with him.

It is simply amazing how widespread this fear of secular moral chaos is, given how many misconceptions about morality and human nature are required to set it whirling in a person’s brain. There is undoubtedly much to be said against the spurious linkage between faith and morality, but the following three points should suffice.

1. 1. If a book like the Bible were the only reliable blueprint for human decency that we had, it would be impossible (both practically and logically) to criticize it in moral terms. But it is extraordinarily easy to criticize the morality one finds in the Bible, as most of it is simply odious and incompatible with a civil society.

<snip>

It is important to point out that we decide what is good in the Good Book. We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses; we read that a woman found not to be a virgin on her wedding night should be stoned to death, and we (if we are civilized) decide that this is the most vile lunacy imaginable. Our own ethical intuitions are, therefore, primary. So the choice before us is simple: we can either have a twenty-first-century conversation about ethics—availing ourselves of all the arguments and scientific insights that have accumulated in the last two thousand years of human discourse—or we can confine ourselves to a first-century conversation as it is preserved in the Bible.

2. If religion were necessary for morality, there should be some evidence that atheists are less moral than believers.

People of faith regularly allege that atheism is responsible for some of the most appalling crimes of the twentieth century. Are atheists really less moral than believers? While it is true that the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were irreligious to varying degrees, they were not especially rational. In fact, their public pronouncements were little more than litanies of delusion—delusions about race, economics, national identity, the march of history, or the moral dangers of intellectualism. In many respects, religion was directly culpable even here. Consider the Holocaust: the anti-Semitism that built the Nazi crematoria brick by brick was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity. For centuries, Christian Europeans had viewed the Jews as the worst species of heretics and attributed every societal ill to their continued presence among the faithful.

While the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominantly secular way, its roots were undoubtedly religious—and the explicitly religious demonization of the Jews of Europe continued throughout the period. (The Vatican itself perpetuated the blood libel in its newspapers as late as 1914.) Auschwitz, the Gulag, and the killing fields are not examples of what happens when people become too critical of unjustified beliefs; on the contrary, these horrors testify to the dangers of not thinking critically enough about specific secular ideologies. Needless to say, a rational argument against religious faith is not an argument for the blind embrace of atheism as a dogma. The problem that the atheist exposes is none other than the problem of dogma itself—of which every religion has more than its fair share. I know of no society in recorded history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

<snip>

3. If religion really provided the only conceivable objective basis for morality, it should be impossible to posit a nontheistic objective basis for morality. But it is not impossible; it is rather easy.

Clearly, we can think of objective sources of moral order that do not require the existence of a law-giving God. In The End of Faith, I argued that questions of morality are really questions about happiness and suffering. If there are objectively better and worse ways to live so as to maximize happiness in this world, these would be objective moral truths worth knowing. Whether we will ever be in a position to discover these truths and agree about them cannot be known in advance (and this is the case for all questions of scientific fact). But if there are psychophysical laws that underwrite human well-being—and why wouldn’t there be?—then these laws are potentially discoverable. Knowledge of these laws would provide an enduring basis for an objective morality. In the meantime, everything about human experience suggests that love is better than hate for the purposes of living happily in this world. This is an objective claim about the human mind, the dynamics of social relations, and the moral order of our world. While we do not have anything like a final, scientific approach to maximizing human happiness, it seems safe to say that raping and killing children will not be one of its primary constituents.

The thing the author of your article does not understand is that we do in fact decide (or discover) our own morality. Its precisely because of the fact that the church isnt a power hunger war machine as it used to be... it is because of that fact that we no longer consider it a good thing to burn people alive for (allegedly) practicing witchcraft, or doling out public executions for minor greivances... or slave ownership. That is humanity rising above the doctrines of savage "morality" as dictated by "God". Our morality has evolved beyond the savage dogmas of 2000+ year old superstitious shepherds (thank the heavens). Pillars of our morality have even been challenged and changed since the founders time, and its a good thing for all of us... and its vital for all of us that it continues.

Those of you who think God dictates morality may need to review what exactly he specifically lays out in the books he supposedly authored.

The thing the author of your article does not understand is that we do in fact decide (or discover) our own morality.

This means that one can decide the morality of something say like; killing you after making you watch the rape and torture of your wife and daughters. Afterall, we all decide the morality of a given situation individually.

How do we explain the pervasive agreement of morality traits across cultures and geography. These traits are common for the most part even among isolated groups. (Yes you might find a couple of examples but please spare us the odd exceptions).

Those of you who think God dictates morality may need to review what exactly he specifically lays out in the books he supposedly authored.

Now you want it both ways. Either you accept the books you reference as legitimately from God or you do not. If you do, His rules apply regardless whether you agree. If you don't accept the rules as coming from God, don't try to use His sources, the very ones you don't believe.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.C. S. LewisDo not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. (Are you listening Barry)?:mad:Ayn Rand

This means that one can decide the morality of something say like; killing you after making you watch the rape and torture of your wife and daughters. Afterall, we all decide the morality of a given situation individually.

Here, I'll simply requote part of the article that addressess this:

Clearly, we can think of objective sources of moral order that do not require the existence of a law-giving God. In The End of Faith, I argued that questions of morality are really questions about happiness and suffering. If there are objectively better and worse ways to live so as to maximize happiness in this world, these would be objective moral truths worth knowing. Whether we will ever be in a position to discover these truths and agree about them cannot be known in advance (and this is the case for all questions of scientific fact). But if there are psychophysical laws that underwrite human well-being—and why wouldn’t there be?—then these laws are potentially discoverable. Knowledge of these laws would provide an enduring basis for an objective morality

How do we explain the pervasive agreement of morality traits across cultures and geography. These traits are common for the most part even among isolated groups. (Yes you might find a couple of examples but please spare us the odd exceptions).

See above. There are real tangible constraints imposed upon us by the order of the natural world, nature, and society that cause certain acts and actions to be better or worse for our own and other's well being. Societies generally agree that unprovoked killing is wrong, not because some invisible being says its wrong, but because it makes people miserable and civilization impossible. Obviously other moral questions become more complex and harder to judge, but you get the idea.

Now you want it both ways. Either you accept the books you reference as legitimately from God or you do not. If you do, His rules apply regardless whether you agree. If you don't accept the rules as coming from God, don't try to use His sources, the very ones you don't believe.

It was a challenge to those who would say morality is dictated by God. The doctrines of much of our contemporary religious morality clearly contradict or even ignore many moral dictates as inspired by God in the holy books.

But honestly, I feel sad for him. He is obviously very lonely and disturbed. Someone making a movie like this reminds me of the guy that constantly talks about how "non-gay" he is and makes fun of homosexuals because deep down he is fighting his own gay urges.

Bill Maher made a movie? Lemmie guess how much THAT makes in Box Office receipts...

Whether or not Maher's a far Left talking head, I care not. What I don't understand is for a so-called "comedian", who finds this guy funny? Have you ever watched his stand-up? It's mediocre, at best. If I'm looking for comedy that skewers religion, I'm going with George Carlin, Bill Hicks or Doug Stanhope. At least those guys make me laugh with what they do....Maher's an unfunny hack.